


Aftermath

by WickedlyEmma



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-29 06:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18773383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedlyEmma/pseuds/WickedlyEmma
Summary: Veronica doesn't see Heather until the explosion hits.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stuff_and_nonsense](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuff_and_nonsense/gifts).



Heather, Veronica realizes belatedly, was on the field when JD self destructs in a ball of fiery inferno. She doesn’t manage to see the familiar blond hair until a millisecond before the explosion. She opens her mouth to yell. To warn her.

It’s too late.

Veronica comes to minutes or hours later in front of the school. She blinks ash out of her eyes, hoping that the debris isn’t from her former boyfriend. For a moment after the explosion, she thinks the world when silent. Then ringing in her head says otherwise.

Fuck, she realizes, Heather.

Her eyes search the field before they land on where she had been moments before. For one heart-stopping moment, she can’t find her. No, Veronica thinks, no more. She doesn’t think can take it.

Veronica’s heart only starts beating again when Heather twitches in her arms.

“Ver… on… ica?”

“Its me,” she coos, “It’s me.”

“What am I doing here?”

“There was an…” Veronica stumbles on her path to find the right word. None of them seem to fit. “Accident. Are you hurt?”

“Why do you care?” She asks. Veronica would think it would sound rude coming out of anyone else’s mouth. Out of Heather McNamara’s, it just sounds confused.

“Because we’re friends.”

Heather blinks. “Not really,” she says. Veronica can barely scrounge up enough heart to be offended.

“Of course we are,” Veronica says with a breathless desperation, “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Because you’re nice. And I’m not.”

Veronica wants to laugh, delicious with the sheer irony of the situation. Maybe Heather isn’t nice, but she still has room to grow. Despite the intrinsic hatred of being treated as children, that’s all they really were. Veronica included, she knows.

Veronica’s eyes catch on a shard of metal wedged in Heather’s abdomen, surrounded in a pool of crimson. Her heart rises in her throat. Her hands reach towards the shard of their own accord before she yanks it back. She isn’t sure whether or not she should pull it out. Books and the healthcare sphere say no, but the thrumming in her chest says yes. She can’t stand for this bombshell debris to be stuck in her friend any longer, but she forces herself to wait.

“You’ll be okay,” Veronica says, “You’ll be okay.” She hopes it isn’t a lie.

“Why should I be okay?” Heather mumbles, leaning her head back on the rough concrete, “Why should I get to be okay when all my friends aren’t?”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Don’t you think this place would be better off without me?”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Veronica defends her with a fierceness she didn’t know existed until today. She hopes this part of her will stay. It feels right. One of the only additions to her personality she’s liked in the past few months. At least this trait didn’t involve assisted homicide.

“Why?”

Veronica stares into Heather’s unblinking gray eyes.

“Because you’re kind. You’re nice when you don’t have to be. You make mistakes, but so does everyone else. You’re not any worse than anyone else at this school. And you’re definitely,” Veronica breaks off with a bitter laugh, “You’re definitely better than me.”

“No I’m not. You’re always so… nice to me. Even when I don’t deserve it.”

“Hey,” Veronica says, “You do deserve it. You deserve to be happy and graduate and go to college and meet the perfect person. You deserve to live past this, Heather.”

“So do you.”

For a moment, Veronica is struck dumb by the knowing blueness in Heather’s eyes. Oh God, she thinks, does she know what Veronica’s done? Internally, she knows Heather doesn’t understand. Veronica knows she can’t tell her, unless she wants to end up in jail. Isn’t this what JD’s sacrifice was more?

No, Veronica knows, it wasn’t. JD’s sacrifice was an ill-planned scheme from a brain that craved self-destruction. It wasn’t meant to help anyone but himself. But that doesn’t mean Veronica can’t use it as a second chance. Because maybe, Veronica thinks, she deserves a second chance.

Or maybe she doesn’t. She doesn’t think it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

“I’m going to go get help, okay? I’ll be right back—”

Heather grasps onto her arm with all her strength. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.”

Veronica’s expression softens and she helps Heather to her feet.

“This is a bad idea,” Veronica warns.

“Oh shut up,” Heather says as she throws her arm around her shoulder. She grunts from the pain, but her grip never wavers. Veronica holds on tight to her waist and together they limp towards the school.

“Come on Heather, you can do this,” Veronica grits out.

Heather makes a low moan of pain as they crash through the front doors of the school. Everyone is already there, drawn by the sound of JD’s last decision.

“What are you staring at?” Veronica snaps at her empty-eyed classmates, “Get help!”

Miss Flemming is more than happy to offer help. Veronica doesn’t manage to hear a word she says as she watches Heather get wheeled away in a stretcher. As she passes, she grips Veronica’s hand with a strength that rivals steel.

“They’re going to take you to the hospital, don’t worry,” Veronica soothes. Heather still refuses to let go.

“Come with me.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I promise I’ll be there when you get out of surgery.”

The wrinkle between Heather’s eyebrow smooths itself and she releases Veronica from her grip.

“Thanks ‘Onica.”

A smile starts to tug at Veronica’s lips and she’s overcome with the urge to cry for the first time during this hellish day. She watches as Heather gets taken away to an ambulance, her arm waving with all of her feeble strength. The first-responders want to check her out too, she knows, but she refuses. Veronica sits on the steps of her high school next to Martha Dunnstock and waits for her parents.

She hopes Heather will be okay. She, out of all the Heathers, deserves happiness.

Maybe Veronica will find it one day too.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my writing & wanna talk to me, I'm on tumblr @wickedlyemma


End file.
